


Bower

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock in Exile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 10:06:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is blue; this is indigo...</p>
<p>"...for a few days, he  stays close, lingers around the transport watching John feather (or de-feather)  the nest like a bower bird expecting its mate, waiting for him to come home."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bower

**Author's Note:**

> For [ greenjudy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greenjudy/pseuds/greenjudy). Thank you for telling me that in Japanese culture, indigo is a color associated with true love.

_“The Japanese term_ _ai_ _(pronounced “i”) can mean either “love” or “indigo.”—_ _from text for a lecture at The Textile Museum, Washington DC_

 

He’s dreaming again. He dreams that he’s died, and it’s not a dream, not a trick, not a sacrifice meant to protect the only friends he might ever have had. He dreams he’s a shade, a ghost, and for a few days, he stays close, lingers around the transport watching John feather (or de-feather)the nest like a bower bird expecting its mate, waiting for him to come home.

It doesn’t happen. He sleeps.

***

He knows (how can he not) that beyond a certain age we all carry our elegiac burdens. He’s tried to delete his, but it won’t work, not for this one. It’s unthinkable.

This is blue; this is indigo, only not beautiful, not picked with stars. Not five o’ clock shade on the towers of the downtown, not a bell of low pressure over the city he loves, not trenches under the eyes of the one he loves. It’s dull, dull beyond anything he’s ever meant by dull. (Indigo, precursor indicant; toxic, though not orally; blue dye in vats in the jungle, poison; _Tapinauchenius cupreus_ , the indigo tree spider: how many ways to murder a web?)

I, he thinks, have never contented anybody, only worried them, like chemicals, or crows.

John’s voice at 3 am, “Sherlock, what did you _do?_ ”

(In Japanese _ai iro_ , the deepest blue.)

**Author's Note:**

> From “True Indigo” (something longer I can't seem to finish.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Bower](https://archiveofourown.org/works/541805) by [AfroGeekGoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AfroGeekGoddess/pseuds/AfroGeekGoddess)




End file.
